


Desperation and Desire

by NikiBogwater



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Mando is a Soft Dad, Mild Angst, Mostly plotless, Soft Mando and Child feels herein, Takes place after season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:01:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25075042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikiBogwater/pseuds/NikiBogwater
Summary: Desperation made you near-sighted, made you clumsy. It was imperative to his survival that he never give in to desperation.Even knowing all of this, right now, he couldn’t deny that he would kill to be out of this storm.After a disastrous day, Din and the Child have a moment of bonding.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 159





	Desperation and Desire

**Author's Note:**

> I usually post on Fridays, but I have nothing else going on this weekend and I felt like this piece was as good as it was ever going to get. I have wanted to do a soft Mando-Child bonding fic pretty much ever since I first saw the show back in January, but it took me until now to really nail down the feel I wanted. Special thanks to my friend PoetryInMotion for beta reading this for me. Go check out her work here on AO3. She's an incredible writer and deserves all the love we can give her.

Din Djarin liked to think that it took a lot to make him truly desperate. He was used to living on the edge, forgoing common comforts, working with whatever raw hand fate dealt him. As a Mandalorian, he was trained to pack away his emotions in a tight little box and stuff them in a distant corner of his heart where they couldn’t affect his decisions. Desperation made you near-sighted, made you clumsy. It was imperative to his survival that he never give in to desperation. 

Even knowing all of this, right now, he couldn’t deny that he would kill to be out of this storm.

The somewhat sardonic part of him registered the irony of his situation; a Mandalorian, accustomed to harsh living, brought to the brink of desperation because of a little moisture. Though in his defense, this wasn’t just a little moisture. This was sheets of driving rain, pelting him mercilessly like bullets, creeping into every crevice of his armor, soaking him down to his aching bones. This was explosions of thunder that rammed against his brain like sledgehammers and sent trembles down his spine and into his stomach. This was misery incarnate. Yet for all that, he might have been able to bear it if it weren’t for the infinitely precious bundle he clutched against his chestplate, fruitlessly trying to shield it from the storm. 

The Child didn’t complain. He just lay there in Din’s arms, wrapped in his soaking wet cape, one tiny hand gripping the top of his cuirass as he shivered violently. That almost made it worse, somehow; the fact that the little one didn’t scream or even whimper, just accepted this misery with resigned silence, as if he didn’t realize that he deserved better, that Din should have taken better care of him, should have kept him safe, should have--

He stopped that line of thought short, focusing instead on the wet slap of his boots against the muddy ground. His entire existence had narrowed to a single point now: get the kid somewhere warm. He couldn’t think about their botched mission, about the Imperial agent who had lured him here with false promises of information on the child’s species, who had led him right into a trap that he really should have seen coming, who very nearly succeeded in killing Din and taking the Child. He couldn’t think about the fact that he was failing the one task the Armorer had given him in regards to his foundling, that he was pathetically ill-equipped and unprepared for such a responsibility. Get the kid somewhere warm. That was all he could do right now. Yet even that simple undertaking was nearly proving to be too much for him. 

The tiny moon they had landed on was only sparsely populated, and lacked the amenities of a more well-visited planet, such as an inn or a cantina. The Razor Crest was a mile beyond the tiny farming village the Mandalorian was trudging through now, and with the mud sucking on his boots with every step, he couldn’t say how long it would take him to get back there. The Child shuddered against his chest and Din pressed him closer, the claws of desperation sinking deeper into his heart.  
*****  
By the time he was finally trudging up the ramp into the Razor Crest, Din felt like a dead man walking. The little one was shivering harder than ever, and had developed a low fever. The Mandalorian was quick to unwrap him from his cloak, wincing behind his helmet at the unhappy whimper the Child gave as he was exposed to the cold air. “Yeah, I know,” he murmured, voice thick with exhaustion. “Just hang on.” He ripped his blanket off of his bunk and swaddled the Child in it, finding comfort in the repetitive action of tucking the numerous thick folds around him. The Child settled into the blanket with a quivering sigh. 

Nearly stumbling over his own feet, Din pried open one of his storage crates and fished out a water packet. He pulled off his helmet and let it drop to the floor, then ripped the cap of the water ration off with his teeth and held the spout up to the Child’s lips. He fussed for a few seconds, clearly more interested in taking a nap than in rehydrating, but after a bit of coaxing, he clamped down on the nipple and began gulping water like an overheated Blurrg. Hopefully it would be enough to bring his fever down. The packet was sucked dry after a few moments, and the little one was already looking a little less flushed. He whimpered again when Din set him down in his bassinet. 

“Just a minute,” Din rasped, fumbling with the clasps of his armor with trembling fingers. Now that the kid was taken care of, the Mandalorian could finally register just how cold and wet he was himself. As the desperation faded, his brain became foggy, and it took him a moment longer than he would have liked to remember where he kept his spare clothes. The Child continued to make soft, unhappy noises as Din stepped into the ‘fresher to change. He emerged looking rumpled, but at least he was dry. He regarded the pile of armor he had left in the corner. He didn’t like being without it; there was a vulnerability that came with being comfortable, and with the pair of them being hunted every minute of their lives, vulnerable was the last thing Din wanted to be. But he already felt like each of his limbs weighed ten pounds, and the thought of piling his armor back on made his aching bones weep in protest. He sighed, ran a hand through his still-damp hair, and left the beskar where it was. 

The Child was fussing and struggling against his cocoon, trying to free his arms and reach out to Din. The sight of him looking so miserable brought a tight feeling to Din’s throat, and he had to swallow a few times before it would go away. _You should be doing better,_ he thought as he lifted the little one into his arms again. _This shouldn’t be happening to him._ He brushed the thought from his mind, instead focusing on the sensation of the Child curling into the crook of his neck. Din didn’t often feel things without the barrier of armor and clothing. He was never quite sure what to make of the warm, comfortable feeling that nestled in his chest on the rare occasions he could feel the Child against his skin. The little one settled against him and fell silent, his tiny breaths brushing against Din’s exposed collarbone. Din swallowed and collected his scattered thoughts before ascending the ladder into the cockpit, where he activated the ground security protocols. 

He collapsed into the pilot’s chair with a groan, leaning back as far as he could. The blanket had fallen loose and was pooling in his arms and lap. He had enough presence of mind to make sure the youngling was still tucked underneath it before he tipped his head back and let his eyes close. Logic told him he should go back down into the hold and crawl into bed. But his screaming muscles had finally fallen silent the moment he sunk into his seat and he had no desire to move and risk setting them off again. He felt the Child disentangle a hand from the blanket and grip the thin material of his shirt, as though anchoring himself in place. In spite of his exhaustion, Din found himself lifting his other arm to settle his hand against the baby’s back, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing as the trembling slowly lessened.

“...I’m sorry,” Din whispered, a distant part of himself wondering where his usual inhibition had gone while the rest of him was too tired to care. “It wasn’t supposed to go like that. I’m sorry I keep messing things up for you. I wish you had someone better.” He was awake enough to know that that was only half-true. Din did want better for the Child, but he didn’t want that to be someone else. Din wanted to be what the little one deserved. He wanted to feel worthy of being called the baby’s _buir._

The hand gripping his shirt kneaded against his chest gently, and a warm, foreign presence crept into his mind. 

_Want you,_ it said. _Want you._ The Child had done this before a few times, reaching out with feelings rather than words. Most of the time, Din was too focused on something else, too anxious and distracted to hear it. But lying here in the quiet of the cockpit, being lulled into a sort of half-sleep by the sound of the rain hitting the viewport, Din could feel the little one’s presence whispering in the back of his head. He had long since gotten past feeling unsettled by it. Now he was simply left with a quiet and almost humbling awe. He swallowed hard as the presence shifted, and _want_ began to morph into _love,_ wrapping around his mind like an embrace.

“I...” His voice hitched, whether from emotion or weariness, he couldn’t tell, but he pressed on. “...I want you too.” 

The Child cooed softly and pressed against his neck, shifting for a moment to get comfortable. Din adjusted the blanket around him, sighing as he felt the soft fine hairs on top of the baby’s head tickle his chin. With the warmth of the child nestled against his heart and the warmth of the little one’s presence in his mind, he soon found himself drifting off.

**Author's Note:**

> In case you are new to the fandom, _buir_ is Mando'a for father/mother.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and if you have any comments I'd love to hear them. :)
> 
> Visit me on Tumblr at https://nikibogwater.tumblr.com/


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